Orange Is the New Black's Beth Fowler on the Surprising Reason She Always Gets Cast as a Nun

It's not the habit she imagined having.

By
Beth Fowler

Jun 15, 2015

Getty ImagesTheo Wargo Getty Images Entertainment

I'm seated in a cafeteria filled with women wearing identical clothing and eating unappetizing food over a short, prescribed time. In my mind, this is exactly what being in a convent would be like—when I was young, I longed to be a nun. But I'm actually on the set of the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, where I play Sister Jane Ingalls, a nun in prison. How I got here is quite a story.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

I was a good Catholic girl in New Jersey in the 1950s. When I was around 10, my first friend, Regis (we met when we were 4!), and I invited the entire neighborhood to a religious pageant in the basement of her parents' home. I was Our Lady of Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary, bedecked in a blue bedsheet, singing a hymn, with the other kids kneeling at my feet.

Courtesy of Beth Fowler

We'd dressed like tiny brides for our First Holy Communion a few years before, and later would take the saints' names for confirmation. Mine was Joan, as in Joan of Arc.

My 16 years of Catholic school were filled with daily prayer, devotionals, Bible stories, holiday

services that stirred my soul—and the Mass, with the beauty of its Latin language and music. I

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

couldn't get enough of it. I felt safe and loved. The presence of God was with me.

The sisters who taught us were good-natured but very strict, since their grade-school classrooms

were filled with 50 to 60 students. I was eager to please them. I got excellent grades, volunteered for projects and walked them to the convent after classes. They were devout women, smart and funny.

As the years went on, several of them mentored me. They saw I had talents, so they encouraged

and tutored me. The only acting teacher I've ever had was Sister Doris Ann, who sat beneath one

basketball hoop while I stood across the court to be coached on monologues and speeches that

would win me state trophies.

The hours they devoted to my achievements were a wonder, and I admired their generosity of spirit as well as their skills. I wanted to be one of them.

I chose to attend a small Catholic college because it was also the Mother House of the religious

order I intended to enter. My interview with the Mother General won her approval, and, with the

support of the sisters, I prepared to enter the convent in my junior year. But as the date approached, I withdrew my request. Upon much reflection, I just couldn't see myself living that life.

After graduation, I taught music at a public grade school and performed at community theaters.

In the audience one night was a woman who offered me a job at her professional summer stock

house. I took it and the actors encouraged me to leave teaching. I said to myself that if I got the

lead in My Fair Lady the next summer, it would be a sign from God that I should have a life in the theater. He gave me the sign! I went on to enjoy a successful career throughout the country as well as on Broadway, where I received two Tony nominations. I married a fellow actor in 1976.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

And then a strange thing happened: I started being cast as a nun again and again. The casting

directors must just sense it in me. Maybe I have the face of a nun! In the late '70s, I was a singing nun in a Kleenex commercial. And then, in the '80s, I was cast in Nunsense the Musical. And then again, in the early '90s, in the Sister Act movies.

Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection

And now I am playing Sister Jane Ingalls, an activist incarcerated for handcuffing herself to a flagpole at a nuclear facility who confronts all sorts of moral, ethical, political and religious issues. My words were written by others, but when I say the lines, they are processed through my life experiences.

Courtesy of JoJo Whilden/Netflix

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

My closest friends are devout Catholics. Regis has been a nun for more than 50 years and

remains very much a part of my life. Perhaps that subtly colors Sister Jane's point of view. On set I'm channeling some of the nuns from my upbringing, and when I think of Regis my speech

becomes gentler.

My prayers have continued throughout my life, but my churchgoing habits have not. Unlike Sister Jane, I was disappointed and dismayed by Vatican II and the modernization of the Mass into the English and the strumming of folk guitars. I prefer the pageantry and elegance of the Latin Mass.

I did not adapt.

Sister Jane and I may have chosen different paths, but the start of our journeys had a common inspiration. And our goal is the same: to live a good life to the fullest and to enhance God's grace as we travel.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Woman's Day participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.